We could have died!

We've had such nice weather that we decided we'd go out today and clear out the vegetable beds that we built last year. First of all, we needed to rip out and throw away all the carrots that were still there. It was kind of a waste. They just rotted.

Next we mixed in compost and fertilizer with the old dirt. For that you need a pitchfork, which Gina helpfully agreed to fetch from under the crawlspace. Even though it gives her the major heeby jeebies to go under there.

Well just look at what was lurking there in the hollow handle of the pitchfork. A deathly dangerous black widow spider who was waiting there to bite us at the first sign of spring. Smart Thomas, he looked inside the handle before he grabbed hold of it and saw the spider there. Otherwise he would have been attacked for sure. He poked it out of our pitchfork with a stick and took pictures of it before squirting it with spider spray. Then, we went back to work. We divided our beds into square-foot sections to cram a lot of plants in (kind of like this) and Thomas' reed thread works perfectly for the job. These chives here look like they survived the winter.

We planted seeds for radishes, snap peas, beets, rainbow chard, broccoli, and carrots.

We also planted baby lettuce seedlings. Just one more month until we can put everything else out!